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Tyson Fury apparently doesn’t care to keep his cards close to his chest.
The heavyweight titlist from Manchester, England freely laid out his strategy for his upcoming defense of his WBC belt against countryman Dillian Whyte on April 23 at Wembley Stadium in London.
Suffice to say, Fury does not intend to futz about.
“I’m gonna knock him out,” Fury said of Whyte in an interview on BT sport with former two-division titlist Carl Frampton.
“I’m gonna tell you the game plan: straight out of the block, straight to the middle of the ring, push him back, straightaway. Big, heavy artillery from round one, and see how long he can take it for, without being hit back.”
In previous years, Fury’s prediction may have been heeded as nothing more than empty bluster, given his inclination for boxing, not brawling, his way to wins, oftentimes to bland effect. But Fury seemingly turned over a new, aggressive-minded leaf in his past two fights, both of which were against feared heavyweight puncher Deontay Wilder. The new style has worked in Fury’s favor. In both outings, Fury scored a stoppage. Fury has credited the sea-change in his fighting approach to his trainer SugarHill Steward, who came on board as head coach going into the second Wilder bout in 2020.
Still, that does not mean that Fury plans on being completely reckless. Fury said he is well aware of Whyte’s favorite punch on the inside: the catch and counter, whereby one parries or blocks an incoming punch and immediately strikes back with a punch of own’s one. Whyte, who has traditionally been a plodder, likes to trade with his opponents.
“He’s got a good counter left hook,” Fury noted. “It’s not a single, jumping left hook or it’s not like a one-two and a left hook. It’s more of a catch the right hand, come back with the left hook.
“But, in order to catch that right hand, it’s gonna detonate on him. So he’s catching it when it hits him on the glove. You know if you put your hands up like that (ear-muff defense, it still hurts [when the punch lands] doesn’t it? When you get punched and you block it like that, you punch right through the guard in devastating fashion. So block that, take that right hand, right to the face!”
The 33-year-old Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) is making his second defense of his WBC belt against the 34-year-old Whyte (28-2, 19 KOs), his mandatory challenger.